Raven, Melissa

I am a psychiatric epidemiologist, policy analyst, and activist. Although qualified as a clinical psychologist, I have worked primarily as a lecturer and researcher in public health, with a major focus on social determinants of health.

And if I had a chance to come back in another life, it would be as an ornithologist-conservationist. From where I live in the Adelaide foothills, I often see black cockatoos flying past, in this case being chased by magpies. They are usually in groups of two to ten, occasionally up to about one hundred. They have a distinctive, eerie cry. They are wary of humans, and I have never seen one land on a building, unlike the white cockatoos, which will land almost anywhere.